Cameron will save the country 1. 5 billion pounds but if he is determinined to help the old folk we will lose another 4 billion pounds
OAPs 'miss out on £5.4bn benefits'
Pensioners are failing to claim up to £5.4 billion in benefits every year even though many of them are struggling to make ends meet, new research has indicated.
Age UK estimates that 1.97 million older people who are eligible for council tax benefit are not claiming it, collectively missing out on £1.5 billion a year from this benefit alone - an average of £728 each.
The charity said pensioners were nearly twice as likely to miss out on council tax benefit as other age groups, with 44% of eligible older people not claiming it, compared with just 28% of non-pensioners.
It said the reasons older people failed to pick up money they were entitled to ranged from being unaware of the range of benefits available or not realising they were eligible to thinking the claiming process was too complicated.
But it added that despite 1.8 million pensioners living in poverty, many of them felt too proud to claim benefits or thought the claims process was too intrusive, with the charity often told by older people that they would rather be "proud and poor than beg for money".
Recent anecdotal evidence has also suggested that, despite struggling to afford everyday essentials, some pensioners were not claiming benefits because they thought the country could not afford them.